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of fear grow from a judgment in weighing dangers. And a very easy change, from the traces of the letters, gives us this sense, and reconciles the reasoning of the whole passage:

for th' effect of judgment

Is oft the cause of fear.

THEOBALD.

Hanmer reads, with equal justness of sentiment -for defect of judgment

Is oft the cure of fear..

But, I think, the play of effect and cause more resembling the manner of our author. JOHNSON.

If fear, as in other passages of Shakspere, be understood in an active signification for what may cause fear, it means that Cloten's defect of judgment caused him to commit actions to the terror of others, without due consideration of his own danger therein. Thus in King Henry IV. Part II.

-all these bold fears,

Thou seest with peril I have answered.

TOLLET.

178. I am perfect, what: -] I am well informed,

what. So in this play :

I'm perfect, the Pannonians are in arms.

181.

JOHNSON.

-take us in,] To take in means, to con

quer, to subdue. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

-cut the Ionian seas,

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194.

-Though his honour

Was nothing but mutation;

-] Mr. Theo

bald, as usual, not understanding this, turns honour to humour. But the text is right, and means, that the only notion he had of honour, was the fashion, which was perpetually changing. A fine stroke of satire, well expressed. WARBURTON.

213. Did make my way long forth.] Fidele's sickness made my walk forth from the cave tedious.

226.

-revenges,

JOHNSON!

That possible strength might meet,-] Such pursuit of vengeance as fell within any possibility of opposition. JOHNSON. 237. I'd let a parish of such Cloten's blood,] I would, says the young prince, to recover Fidele, kill as many Clotens as would fill a parish.

JOHNSON.

"His visage," says Fenner of a catchpole, "was almost eaten through with pock-holes, so that half a parish of children might have played at cherry-pit in his face." FARMER.

239. O thou goddess,

Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys!] So the first

folio. The second reads,

“Thou divine Nature, thyself thou blazon'st!”

280. 0, melancholy!

REED.

Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find

The ooze, to shew what coast thy sluggish crare

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reads,

Might easiliest harbour in?- -] The folio

-thy sluggish care':

which Dr. Warburton allows to be a plausible reading, but substitutes carrack in its room; and with this Dr. Johnson tacitly acquiesces, and inserts it in the Mr. Sympson, in his notes on Beaumont and Fletcher, has retrieved the true reading, which is, -thy sluggish crare.

text.

See The Captain, act i. sc. 2.

-let him venture

"In some decay'd crare of his own."

A crare, says the author of The Revisal, is a small trading vessel, called in the Latin of the middle ages crayera. The same word, though somewhat differ-" ently spelt, occurs in Harrington's translation of Ari-osto, Book XXXIX. stanza 28.

"A miracle it was to see them grown

"To ships, and barks, with gallies, bulks, and

crayes,

"Each vessel having tackling of her own,

"With sails and oars to help at all essays.”

Again, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611.

"Behold a form to make your craers and barks.". Again, in Drayton's Miseries of Queen Margaret: "After a long chase took this little cray, "Which he suppos'd him safely should convey.".. Again, in the 22d Song of Drayton's Polyolbion: -some shell, or little crea,

"Iard labouring for the land on the high work- ·

ing sca."

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Again, in Amintas for his Phillis, published in England's Helicon, 1614:

"Till thus my soule doth passe in Charon's crare.” Mr. Tollet observes that the word often occurs in Holinshed, as twice, p. 906, Vol. II. STEEVENS. The word is used in the stat. 2 Jac. I. c. 32. "the owner of every ship, vessel, or crayer.”

TYRWHITT.

284. -but I,] This is the reading of the first folio, which later editors not understanding, have changed into but ah! The meaning of the passage I take to be this:-Jove knows, what man thou might'st have made, but I know, thou diedst, &c. TYRWHITT.

-but I,

Thou dy'dst, a most rare boy, of melancholy!] I believe "but ah!" to be the true reading. Ay is through the first folio, and in all books of that time, printed instead of ah! Hence probably I, which was used for the affirmative particle ay, crept into the text here.

boy.

Heaven knows (says Belarius), what a man thou would'st have been, hadst thou lived, but alas! thou diedst of melancholy, while yet only a most accomplished MALONE. clouted brogues-] Are shoes strengthened with clout or hob-nails. In some parts of England, thin plates of iron, called clouts, are likewise fixed to the shoes of ploughmen and other rusticks.

294.

STEEVENS.

296. Why, he but sleeps:] I cannot forbear to introduce a passage somewhat like this, from Webster's

White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, on account of its singular beauty:

"Oh, thou soft natural death! thou art joint

twin

"To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet
"Stares on thy mild departure: the dull owl
"Beats not against thy casement: the hoarse
wolf

"Scents not thy carrion:-pity winds thy corse, "While horror waits on princes!" STEEVENS. 300. With fairest flowers

Whilst summer lasts, &c.] So, in Pericles

Prince of Tyre:

"No, I will rob Tellus of her weede

"To strewe thy greene with flowers: the yel, lowes, blues,

"The purple violets and marygolds,

"Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave

306.

While summer dayes doth last.”

-The ruddock would,

STEEVENS.

With charitable billbring thee all this;
Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are

none,

To winter-ground thy corse.-] To winterground a plant, is to protect it from the inclemency of the winter-season, by straw, dung, &c. laid over it. This precaution is commonly taken in respect of tender trees or flowers, such as Arviragus, who loved Fidele, represents her to be. Fij

The

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